Below are answers to some of the more frequently asked questions about The Holiday Tracker.
- Can holiday requests go to another manager when I’m on holiday?
- Can more than one manager see a single team?
- Can all employees see their team calendar?
- Can employees request flexi-time?
- Can employees carry-over some of their entitlement into the following year?
- Can we change the absence types we record?
- Can I mark a period of time as holiday for ALL employees?
- I don’t want to record employees’ DOB; can I hide some of the employee fields?
- One of our managers is leaving, how can I switch his team to another employee?
- How do I change an employee’s current working pattern?
Can holiday requests go to another manager when I’m on holiday?
Q: When a manager is on holiday, their team members have to wait until they return before their holiday requests are approved. Is there a way to have another manager approve these requests in their absence?
Absolutely. We have a concept we call “Deputies” which allows you to define who should receive the requests when a manager is off.
As an example: you set Mandy to be Eric’s manager, so when Eric makes a request Mandy gets the email. If you then set Alan to be Mandy’s deputy, if Mandy is absent when Eric makes the request, the email will be sent to Alan instead.
Deputies also have access to the manager’s team, so they can check the Team Calendar before they decide to approve or reject the request.
Can more than one manager see a single team?
Q: We have a team that reports to one manager, but we’d like other managers to be able to view that team too – is this possible?
Yes, on the Employment Details page there is a section called Team Calendar Permissions. Go to the Employment Details page for the employee you wish to grant permissions for, then use the “Add Permission” box to grant the permissions.
For example: you want to give Tony the ability to see Mandy’s team, but not to make changes to it. Go to Tony’s profile and find the Team Calendar Permissions section. Start typing Mandy’s name into the “Add Permission For” box and then select Mandy when her name appears. Finally, tick the “Read Only” box and click Add.
Now when Tony logs in and goes to the Team Calendar page, he’ll be able to switch between his own team and Mandy’s using the tabs above the calendar.
Can all employees see their team calendar?
Q: We’d like all employees to be able to see who else on their team is on holiday before they make a holiday request. This stops employees asking for time off when there isn’t the capacity.
By default, standard employees (non-managers) cannot see the team calendar for the team they belong to, but you can easily change this from the Company Settings page. The first option on the Company Settings page is labelled “Do you want non-managers to be able to view their team’s Team Calendar?” Change this to Yes and all employees will be able to see a “read only” view of their team calendar.
Can employees request flexi-time?
Q: We allow employees to take time off as flexi-time, but still require them to check with a manager before taking this time. Can they request flexi like they do holiday?
Yes, this can easily be enabled from the Company Settings page. Once enabled, an employee will be able to tick the “Use Flexi” box when requesting holiday. The days will then be shown on the calendar in a dark-green to distinguish it from the light-green of a holiday.
However, we don’t have a way to track how much flexi-time an employee is entitled too, so your managers will have to know if an employee is entitled to the flexi they’ve requested.
Can employees carry-over some of their entitlement into the following year?
Q: We allow our employees to carry over a maximum of 5 days’ entitlement from one year to another, if they haven’t used it all. Can this be automated in The Holiday Tracker?
From the Company Settings page, you can enable Carry Over and set the maximum number of days employees can carry over. You can also set a maximum number of hours if some of your employees have their entitlement calculated in hours.
Once a new holiday year begins, the first time each manager logs in, they’ll be prompted to approve any carry-over for each of their employees.
The carry-over figure can also be amended from the Employment Details page of each Employee.
Can we change the absence types we record?
Q: We would like to record training days on each employee’s calendar so these are taken into account when a manager checks to see if we have sufficient capacity before approving a holiday.
The custom absence types we allow you to record are listed at the bottom of the Company Settings page. From there you can edit and delete the existing types and add new ones.
When adding a new type, simply enter an appropriate name and chose the desired colour.
You can see more on recording absence and amending the types in our Other Absence Types video.
Can I mark a period of time as holiday for ALL employees?
Q: We close down our factory over Christmas and all employees must use some of their holiday entitlement to cover this period. Is there an easy way to add these holidays to all employees’ calendars?
Yes, that’s what the Company Calendar is for. If, for example, you want to mark the 27th and 28th of December as holidays for all employees, then add the holiday to the Company Calendar as you would any employee calendar. It will warn you that any entries that already exist on employee calendars will be removed first. Once you’ve added it, it will appear on EVERY employees’ calendar. To remove it, simply delete it from the Company Calendar.
I don’t want to record employees’ DOB; can I hide some of the employee fields?
Q: There are a lot of different fields for recording data on each employee. We don’t use most of these and feel they are cluttering the profile pages. Is there a way to hide them?
Yes, you can use the Fields button on the employee profile pages to hide any unused fields. Click the Fields button and then use the toggle boxes on each of the fields to determine if that field will be visible or not.
These settings are company-wide, not per individual, so hiding DOB on one employee’s profile will hide it on them all.
One of our managers is leaving, how can I switch his team to another employee?
Q: When a manager leaves, it can be very time consuming going into each of their team to assign them a new manager – is there a quicker way to do this?
When viewing the employee profile pages for a manager, the panel on the left will indicate how many employees they are a manager for. The panel also contain a “Replace Manager” button you can use to re-allocate the team.
For example: Mandy is leaving the company and Tony will be taking over her entire team. Go to Mandy’s profile and click “Replace Manager”, then start typing Tony’s name into the New Manager box and select Tony from the list. Simple.
How do I change an employee’s current working pattern?
Q: I can add a new working pattern, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to amend the existing pattern.
When you add a new working pattern, it will remove any existing patterns that the new pattern would replace. So to replace the existing pattern, simply add a new work pattern with the same start date as the existing one.
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